The design needed to speak directly to an audience of design students at a specific moment in their education: the transition from art school to professional life. Instead of reaching for a purely artistic or abstract visual approach, the goal was to find something that resonated with the shared experience of that transition.

The visual language was drawn from an unexpected source: the layout of Excel spreadsheets. Internship coordinators used Excel to track the students’ internship progress, making it a recognisable reference. The spreadsheet aesthetic also carries a broader suggestion of life after art school, where financial management and administrative reality become part of the daily routine of running a design business.

Taking a tool as normal as a spreadsheet and turning it into a design language proved more resonant than a purely decorative approach would have. The best references are often the ones that come directly from daily life.

The project produced a series of posters and a social media campaign, including motion design for digital channels. The work was delivered for the 2019 edition of Reality Design Day at the Royal Academy of Art.